My wife made me do it. While I have had to turn to the dark side and embrace polymer pistols to set a good example at work, she has remained staunchly in the 1911 camp. She has moved to 9mm with an STI Duty One Lightweight, which is far easier on her wrists and hands even with the aluminum frame. Anytime we go to the range together, she brings her 1911 and I have to shoot…well one of those guns.
I have several 1911s but I have been holding out for an optic ready version from the factory with the set of features I tend to prefer. The new TRP with the AOS optic cut is really close to what I want in a 1911. There are a few changes that will have to be made and some compromise has to take place to get a reliable pistol with these features under $2K.
I know, I know, it is full of MIM. However, we have come along way in what we know about MIM in relation to 1911s since 1996. I had a Kimber from that first year. I broke every part on it, except the slide, frame, barrel, grip safety, and thumb safety. I lost two guide rod plugs when two different bushing lost the ears off the bottom of them in the first year. One of those happened at Thunder Ranch and a new plunger tube had to be installed at the same time. At 30,000 rounds, the hammer started following, the barrel link broke sometime before that, and everything else went between then and around 60,000 rounds when someone who wanted to collect them wanted it worse than I did. Not all of those pieces were MIM, so it seems that the quality of the manufacturing/ engineering is probably more important than the composition of the parts.
I do not know how this Springfield is going to do but I know that Todd Green took a Warren Tactical Springfield over 60,000 rounds in around 2012. You can see his results at pistol-training.com. I don’t know if we will all be around long enough to see me put that many rounds through a single gun anymore but unless the gun fails, I will probably be shooting it for many thousands.
The gun comes with three 9-round magazines and a coupon for the optic plate of your choice at $80. I didn’t know that until I had already ordered the optic plate from MGW. The AOS system seems to lock in pretty well and I had no trouble mounting the plate and a new Aimpoint ACRO P2 to the gun.
The grip safety would not deactivate until 90% of its travel so I immediately took that off the gun and applied the file to get it to disengage prior to 50% travel. I do this for gloves, accidental high grip, and just because. The safety is there to prevent the trigger from moving when you aren’t gripping the gun. If you are gripping the gun, then it should allow the trigger to move. I do not mind the safety, at all, but I do mind the “all or nothing” timing that often comes from the factory. If I am injured and got a bad grip on the gun, I do not want to try and shift the gun to get full travel of the grip safety. It is an easy fix and not an unusual problem from the makers of 1911s.
The 1980’s called and wants its full length guide rod back. It is the type that uses a hex wrench to unscrew it from the front before disassembly. That means it will unscrew during firing at some point. I will chuck that and replace it with a standard government length guide rod and plug. I do not notice the weight of the full length rod as being a major help, especially with 9mm, and I have never had a recoil spring bind and cause me issues.
The first 27 rounds were with the factory magazines and some 20+ year old 147gr Hydra Shok that must have come out of my wife’s Glock 19 when she went to 1911s in 2002. It seemed to shoot about 2-3 inch groups as I kept making adjustments to get the ACRO zeroed at 25 yards. All the rounds fed and ejected fine with them landing in a pile about 2-3 feet to my right at 3 o’clock. The slide locked open on empty and the first round carried up into the chamber using the slide stop after the reload. It shot like a 9mm 1911.
The 20LPI grip checking is not near as sharp as some I have seen come from Springfield. I like checkering but I do not need needles in my hand so this felt just perfect. The VZ grips are great and the thumb safety works pretty well, with just a slight hesitation before it fully goes on.
The iron sights feature a tritium front and a black rear. The latter gets traded out for a very similar sight with the optic plate. They are useable in the bottom of the window but do not intrude upon the window too much to my eye.
With a rough zero, I decided to check the accuracy. The bushing is easily removed without a tool but the gun shoots good. I would say a 2 1/4″ group at 50 yards is good enough accuracy for a production gun. The 5 1/4″ group with ball isn’t bad. Yes, there are 6 in that picture. Shooting the gun is so much fun that my counting suffers.
For me, the 1911 is the gun that I have always done my best work with. These drills were not cold by any means. These were 150 rounds into the day as I refamiliarized myself with Mister Browning’s masterpiece.
I routinely shoot high 90’s on these drills with full-size guns and sometimes shoot this well. With a 1911, these scores are attainable on a more frequent basis.
As I shot this new gun, I was reminded of some of those things that make the 1911 a frustrating but worthwhile companion. Specifically 9mm 1911s are not without their idiosyncrasies.
The gun works perfectly fine with the factory 9-round magazine, which I believe are Check-Mates. They feed fine with the Wilson 10-round ETMs but will not drop free. I will try a Wilson 9mm slide stop just to find out if that is an easy fix. I would not care but the wife’s STI Duty One is fed from the ETMs so I would like to use the same magazine if possible. She might get testy if I take a round away from her by switching to the other magazines.
One of the things I got comfortable with was stuffing a plug in the bottom of a Glock, picking what sights you want, and adding grip tape to your heart’s content. All done with Lego’s for adults.
The 1911 is different. As I mentioned, the full length two-piece guide rod has got to go. A standard short guide rod and recoil plug will be installed post haste.
The next change will be a short trigger. I am often wearing work gloves, cold weather gloves, and, very rarely, cool guy gloves. I like more room in the trigger guard to get across the face of the trigger.
I have not yet decided on the 2-piece magazine well. I have mag-wells on some 1911s and not on others. I love how easy it is to reload a gun with a well. I dislike how they look and I especially dislike how they can be bent and make the gun inoperative. The 2-piece ones can come loose and cause minor issues, as well.
I really like the Springfield TRP AOS. Let’s see how well it works long term.
Leave a Reply